Travel Advice

This section on travel advice has been provided to give you some practical and useful travel information for your French Holidays in the South of France. It contains up to date information and traveller advice for your French Holidays in Aude specifically and Languedoc-Rousillon generally, it pays to know what your travel requirements are before leaving home.

In this section you'll find information and tips about what you need to do before setting off on holiday, how to get to Languedoc-Roussillon, how to find stop-over hotels and ferries, how to travel by car, train or air with lists of all the budget airlines that service Languedoc-Roussillon. There are useful hints on topics such as driving in France and in particular advice on what car equipment you must have with you when driving in France. There is advice on travel insurance, where to find out what the weather is doing in the Languedoc - Roussillon region and regional information about the departments that make up Languedoc-Roussillon. All in all a comprehensive and useful source of French travel advice.

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Travel Check List

This travel check list is intended to be a minimum requirements list for your travel visit to France and is by no means exhaustive. There will be items specific to your needs that may not be included so take some time to stop and think about what you need to take, personal medication is a good example and raises the point of making sure that you carry your medication in the original packaging and if possible with a copy of your prescription so that you can prove what the medication is and that its for your personal use.

Foreign Office Travel Advice France

Travel Insurance

It is essential that you take out travel insurance to protect both yourself and the members of your family to give you peace of mind that you will not incur expensive medical bills in the event of a medical emergency or illness. This cover should be supplemented with a free European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) which has replaced the E111 form and can be obtained online, see ehic.org.uk

Many of the airlines whether they are low cost airlines or mainline airlines make the taking out of travel insurance a mandatory requirement for using their services, you may also find a number of holiday packages that also insist on travel insurance and at the end of the day it is just good common sense to take out travel insurance given the low cost of the insurance versus the potential benefits it offers in the event of an emergency abroad. You will find that this recommendation is also included in the UK foreign office travel advice pages.

In order to obtain the necessary travel insurance you can select from the following websites each of which allow you to purchase travel insurance on line to meet your needs. For anyone with pre-existing medical conditions take a look at Insurance Choice, they can cover all conditions and have no age limits.

Currency Exchange

It is worth thinking about how much money you are going to need on your vacation. Ferry ports and airports offer you currency exchange services as do the banks, but not always at the best rates. So it is well worth planning what you are going to need up front and look to get the best deal before it becomes a last minute rush.

A popular way to secure funds for travelling abroad that is now much more readily available and convenient, is to use a pre-paid top up card for your Travel Cash. Note the familiar MasterCard symbol which means that you should have no problem accessing your cash wherever you are in Europe. If you still prefer something a little more traditional then you can also order your currency for Home Delivery after requesting a quick quote online.

You should also be aware that when using your credit cards, typically you will not know what rate you are getting or what the additional charges are until you receive your statement.

Cheap Fuel in France

The rising cost of fuel in the UK and France is hitting hard, most of the cost being tax of course. But with no signs from the English or French governments looking to reduce tax and ease the fuel burden it is a good idea to at least find out where to get the cheapest fuel. To that purpose the French government have released a website where you can search for cheap fuel. The link above will get you to the website, it is in French but is still pretty easy to use, you can put in a commune, ours for example is Castelnaudary, select a department from the drop down list or just click on the map.

Worth a look to see if you can reduce your fuel costs and probably more practical to use at a stopover or your destination, even if its only to fill up before heading back home or to fill up your hire car near an airport.

French Weather

It is always useful to know what weather you are likely to encounter on your travels and for French weather information the principle weather web site in France is meteofrance.com . You can look at the region of interest by entering a postal code or, town name, for example Castelnaudary which is located in Aude in France can be found by either entering the town name or its post code 11400.

Another useful web site in English is the Yahoo weather station weather.yahoo.com which again allows you to select the region or place of interest for specific information on your chosen destination and up to 6 days weather using the extended forecast. The Weather Channel provides a 10 day forecast which you can access using the links below or by clicking on 10 Day Forecast.

A 'Vide Grenier' actually means an attic sale or is the equivalent of a car boot sale in the UK. But the French do things a bit differently, so more often than not you will find that the 'Vide Grenier' is spread throughout the entire village and is a mix of professional and amateur sellers offering pretty much anything you can think of. There can also be entertainment and hot food available at some of the larger locations. They are probably every antique hunters' favourite way to spend a day. Just sifting through the offerings looking for a real bargain.

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